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THE HOUR OF PATRIOTISM. 



DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED AT THE UNITED SERVICE OF THE " 

Jirsf, mtmik mmi, gortit, and oolrstmiii'iteii 
f itsbntcrian 0[luirdics, iujfalo, 



NOVEMBER 27, 1862, THE DAY OF 

THE ANNUAL THANKSGIVING 

IX THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 



BY JOEL F. BINGHAM, 

PASTOIl OP WESTMINSTER C O X G R E U A T 1 O N . 



BUFFALO : 
FRANKLIN STEAM PKINTING HOUSE. 



THOMAS TypoOKAPHEK 

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1^MK0\ 



W 



JESSE KETCHUM, ESQ., 

WHO HAS LONG EXEMPLIFIED IX OUR CO.MMVXITT 

PATRIOTISM. PIETY, AND LARGE LIBERALITY, 

KINDLY ASKED KOR PUBLICATION 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEnifATED 

BY HIS 

FRIEXn AXD PASTOH. 



DISCOURSE. 



PSALM CXXII, 6. 
O Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee! 

DuRijsiG the sixty minutes for whicli I am to 
ask your attention, I shall employ myself in 
leading you to some views of the Hour of 
Patriotism, or the Love of our Country in 
HER Middle Passage. 

No good man but loves his country. A vir- 
tuous patriotism is a fundamental quality in 
every virtuous character. It may not always be 
shining with a supereminent lustre over all other 
noble and excellent qualities, such as to throw 
everything else into the shade by an intense and 
overshadowing brightness. There is a time for 
all things under the sun ; and it is not always 
that the requirements of the hour will set this 
in the foreground. There are times when other 



6 

affections anrl other cares will lead. When long 
years of quiet prosperity have lulled a nation 
into secure repose; when public order has ruled 
so long that men have begun to regard an essen- 
tial broach of the peace as an impossible thing; 
when ages of national tranquility have brought 
on national slumber and men have begun to 
dream that disorder and war belong henceforth 
only to the dark and fearful past ; that the angel 
of peace has at last received his conmiission from 
heaven to control for the future the affairs of 
earth; that this blessed dominion will steadily 
spread from shore to shore and never again be 
disturbed, till the heavens be no more — at 
such periods, the affection of which we speak 
will be likely to sleep, like the virgins in the 
parable of our Lord, while the stillness of univer- 
sal repose is al)road and the call for its service 
of fidelity tarries. It is only by their loss that 
we ever estimate our blessings aright. No 
man can be expected properly to appreciate an 
unbought freedom, until he has been taught by 
experience its value l)y its cost. We all accept 
it, enjoy it, move about sweetly in it, as we do in 
the air of heaven, Avithout a. thought of its inesti- 
mable,' value, oi- of the terrors of its loss. But in 



the good man's breast, the sentiment is alive 
though sleeping; and let the waking call be 
heard, let the midnight summons burst on the 
oar, that slumbering love will start from dreams 
and leap with lamp trimmed and abundant oil to 
respond to any summons and any sacrifice. And 
then, too, will the difterence appear between the 
virtuous aftection and every species of hypocrisy. 
If the trumpet call sound long enough and loud 
enough, doubtless all will be awaked. If the 
upheavings of old foundations roar and tremble 
like an earthquake beneath every man's fortunes 
and every man's hopes, doubtless every man will 
begin to take counsel of his fears. But under 
the pressure of the hour of action, all shams of 
sentiment are discovered. However closely 
they had before lain concealed in the general 
slumber, now they are compelled, like the faith- 
less virgins of old, to show their selfishness and 
hypocrisy. Now tlie world must know that 
there is no oil in their lamps for the nightly 
march. In the hour to stand by' a friend in 
need, to sacrifice self for noble love, to do the 
self denying part of an honest and pure attach- 
ment; tlien, all such are forced to let it be 
seen that they are neither ready for the work of 



patriots nor fit for tlie reward of heroes. Sucli an 
one no good man can be. He may have slum- 
bered witli the multitude in ungrateful and in- 
glorious repose ; when awaked to love and duty, 
he may have made great mistakes and smote to 
ruin when he ought and meant to have struck to 
save, but love his country every good man will, 
love her honestly, self-denyingly, self-forgettingly, 
love her to the death. 

When David speaks of Jerusalem he speaks 
of his country. It was his home. It was 
the representative of his native land. It was 
the centre of his possessions, the embodiment 
of his earthly hopes as well as the type of 
the abode of the blest beyond the grave. Un- 
der God's own training the ancient Jews were 
taught to unite their patriotism and their reli- 
gion more closely, perhaps, than do the best of 
us now. David's conception of Jerusalem was 
something more than the mere abstraction which 
attaches to that name in our minds. It was more 
to him than a floating fancy, however noble, pure 
and bright. It was more to him than a vision 
of faith, however ladeii with future and celestial 
splendors. It was that earthly Jerusalem whose 
towers and palaces that moment rose upon his 



view. When lie blesses and prays for Jerusa- 
lem, lie blesses and prays for the capital of his 
country, the venerable seat of his imperial throne, 
the head of his countrymen's nationality, power 
and glory. It did, indeed, cany the destinies 
of the church of God. It did, indeed, enshrine 
the eternal hopes of earth's countless millions. 
Of course the pious David never for a moment 
forgot that. And had it not been so, doubtless 
tliat would have subtracted immensely from his 
pious interest in his country, his Jerusalem, as 
well as in everything else beneatli the sun. But 
the true interests of church and state are always 
one. And any view whatever which sets these 
two supremest interests of man into any kind of 
antagonism, or even walls them apart into any 
essential separation of life and vigor is a disor- 
dered view and a dangerous view both to the 
state and to the church. David had no such 
view. He was a statesman as well as a saint. 
He saw in the integrity and prosperity of the 
.state the vehicle wliich slKnild protect and com- 
fort the church and carry her securely and easily 
onward in her career of beneficence and hallowed 
glory. And in a cherished and loyal church lie 

saw that which should purify and ennoble the 
2 



10 

state and make lier fit for the happy citizenship 
of those whose better kingdom is not of this 
world. He was prepared, therefore, sincerely 
and earnestly to pray for Jerusalem. And it 
was not to pray merely for the church under her 
symbolical name. His mind was not dealing 
merely with emblems of a spiritual and invisible 
good. He was thinking of tangible realities. 
He was dealing with visible facts. He prayed 
for the church through the state which enshrined 
her, for the veritable Jerusalem of Judea, for 
the home of his countrymen, for all the cities 
and valleys of that highly favored nation. He 
prayed for civil and political blessings and above 
these, indeed, yet through these for rehgious bless- 
ings upon the precious land of their fathers. 
Two reasons for his patriotism he has given in 
the context. Jerusalem, my country, ''for my 
brethren and companions' sakes,'''' for the sake of 
my fellow citizens, "/ will noiv say^ Peace he 
ivithin tlieey And, " because of the house of 
the Lord our God,'^ for tlie sake of the church,. 
" I loill seek thy goody blessed home of my 
countrymen, he says, favored land of a fostering 
Providence, abode of temporal blessings unparal- 
leled, seat of priceless privileges of grace, thou 



11 

very gate of an earthly and a heavenly paradise, 
^^ they shall prosper that love thee!'''' — This is 
religious, saintly, prophetic patriotism. 

No one will ask me to say that the love of our 
country is purely a sentiment of religion. This, 
like every other native impulse, will be ennobled 
and purified by true religion, but it is indeed 
one of the sweet charities of our common nature. 
Among people of every age and every land and 
every shade of moral sentiment, the name of pa- 
triot has been always and everywhere a beloved, 
venerable, sacred name. Wherever any tender 
affections exist, wherever the meanino' of mother, 
brother, friend is felt and cherished — widely as 
this — you will never fail to find also that the 
word fellow-countrymen carries a treasured 
sweetness. Commonly, it is true, the sentiment 
works so quietly as to be little noticed and sel- 
dom thought of And so, too, under the pressure 
of cares and the hurr}^ of engagements, how many 
of us sometimes for the hour forget even that 
we have wives and children? — But there are 
two occasions when this attachment ought to 
make itself felt, and will make itself felt in every 
breast which is not hopelessly sunk in cowardice, 
or treachery. 



12 

One of these times comes over us, when we 
find ourselves far away from our home, strangers 
in a foreign land. Then the images of departed 
joys, associations gone, privileges debarred, rise 
vivid in our memory and rule unbidden the 
emotions of our breast. When we move in the 
crowd of aliens that know us not, know not the 
language our mother taught us, know little of 
and care nothing for the land we love ; then our 
instinctive affections move toward that distant 
country which we call our own, where we are 
known and loved and where is stored our 
earthly all; then the very sounds of her lan- 
guage are music, the faces of fellow-countrymen 
like the flices of brothers. Upon this sensitive 
instinct of human nature despots have built the 
punishment of exile. It has always served their 
purpose well in straining and wrenching the ten- 
derest strings of the patriot's heart. It works 
like an invisible rack of torture, and works on 
the deepest, purest, noblest longings of the soul. 
I envy not, I love not the man Avho could en- 
dure exile without pain. I admire not the man 
who can travel in foreign parts, however plea- 
santly, without a twinge of this same pain. He 
may see abroad much that is more splendid than 



13 

anything which his country can boast, much 
tliat is every way worthy and excellent, but he 
cannot find there the land that bore him, that 
has so gently yet securely sheltered his life and 
fostered his fortunes and now waits to afford 
him a quiet grave, or perhaps an honored sepul- 
chre, by the side of kindred dust, when he is 
ready to be gathered to his fathers. I have no 
respect for the traveler who will not love his 
country the more, after his wanderings and liis 
return. 

The other supreme occasion for conscious pa- 
triotism is a time like that which is now croing- 
over us — the time of national peril. A friend 
indeed is a friend in need. The day of danger is 
the day of patriots. The hour of fear and suffer- 
ing is the reigning hour of affection. Adversity 
is the genuine spur of love. As the darkness 
deepens, that flame will burn hotter in every 
honest and filial bosom. The shock of ahirm 
will startle all the energies of affection and ga- 
ther them into conscious feeling and ready effort. 
It is in vain to talk of affection that is not felt 
and seen in the day of trial. Of what material 
must that man be composed who could view with 
indifference the mortal agonies of the country 



14 

that gave him bh'th? Of what material must 
that man be composed who could look calmly 
on the comins; wreck of those 2:entle laws which, 
like a mother seeking only his interest, have 
guarded his happiness and nourished his fortune 
from the first hour of his life? What must he 
be made of who without tears of anguish and an- 
ger could see those institutions Avhich his fathers 
reared, whose beautiful fabric was the object of 
his boyish dreams, the joy and glory of his ma- 
turer years, not as he fondly hoped likely to ^o 
down intact and untarnished an increasing legacy 
to the latest child that should bear his name, but 
on the contrary, unless rescued by prodigious 
and fortunate exertions, likely to be trampled in 
the dust by exasperated enemies, or malicious 
conspirators! When that object of our love is 
plainly in jeopardy ; when those foundations of 
our trust which ^\^e supposed to be firm as ada- 
mant and abiding as the everlasting hills are 
obviously crumbling beneath us and an abyss 
that none can fathom is opening below; then 
honest affection must take the alarm; then the 
sincere heart will need no schooling of logic and 
wait for no command of irrefragible authority. 
It will be a joy, it will be a necessity to speak 



15 

and to strike for that dear and glorious land. 
And what this heaven-born instinct, at such a 
time, is the first to discover and appreciate all 
else within us that is righteous and noble and 
true justifies and supports. Reason, duty, reli- 
gion, rallv round this native sentiment and direct 
and sanction her work. Then, instinct and prin- 
ciple, for once, are one. 

It is a good reason, then, why we are right to 
love and fear for our country, that it is our home. 
^Ye have a right to hold dear the untold inter- 
ests her safety involves to our j^i'osperity and 
comfort. This space of earth, this soil we tread, 
these skies and breezes, these organizations of 
government, of learning, of religion, are our own. 
They are ours to control, to perfect and to profit 
by. They are ours to he robbed of, to lose, to 
suffer by and win an immortality of shame. Our 
earthly all is at stake. Nothing is so dear, noth- 
ing is so precious, but it is linked with this su- 
preme risk. Stripped of this, truly there is 
nothing left. To put the name of selfishness 
upon our partiality for the country in whose 
safety all our interests are merged is to subli- 
mate morality even above the standard of the 
Bible. It is the dictate of religion as well as of 



16 

natural impulse and common sense to love that 
which was made on purpose for our love, to 
keep and enjoy that which was provided for our 
enjoyment and welfare. And to neglect to do 
this is not only weakness and folly, but guilt and 
shame. Whoever is untaught, or unwilling to 
expend, to labor, to sacrifice for his home is too 
insignificant, or unworthy to possess a home. 

We love our country, too, most appropriately 
for her peculiar and precious memories. This 
land is a legacy from fathers who bought it with 
labor and blood. It was redeemed, acre by acre, 
from the wilderness of ages. It was wrested first 
from barbarism, next from tyranny, and then be- 
queathed to us, a noble, pure plateau for human 
liberty and human happiness. No stain of an- 
cient despotism taints this soil. As it was found, 
separated by God's great waters from the iron 
hand of wrong, so it has been left, clean from 
the clutches of irresponsible power. The dire 
spell of king-craft was never woven over these 
wild, free, divine shores. Mo armies of insatiate 
conquerors ever thundered across these virgin 
plains. The oppressive maxims of old political 
systems, the prodigious inequalities of fortune 
which have divided the inhabitants of the other 



17 

continent into princes and beggars, the hoary 
prejudices of rank and caste — this long cata- 
logue of governmental vices and human griev- 
ances and woes, these unsophisticated hills and 
valleys have never been called to learn. Our 
land is the mysterious sunset region of ancient 
wonder. We have come into actual possession 
of the fabled "western isles of the blest." Shut 
away, and kept in store, as it were, under God's 
own padlock, it was given at last by a discern- 
ing Providence into the charge of our faithful 
pilgrim sires. 

Some years ago, an English traveler desired 
to examine the site of ancient Troy and the 
neighboring celebrities of Homer's Iliad. At 
Athens he chartered a bark, and took on board 
a Greek pilot. Their course was nearly the 
same with that which is represented in Homer 
as the route of the allied fleets of Greece on their 
way to avenge the rape of Helen, thirty centu- 
ries before. The white cliffs of Tenedos at 
length heave in sight. They coast along its 
southern margin, and then steer up lietween the 
island and the Mysian shore. The pilot has been 
strangely silent for some time and seems excited. 
By his orders they prepare to cast anchor. At 

3 



IS 

last he gives the word, "Let go! 'twas here 
they anchored our fleet." "What fleet?" asked 
the astonished gentleman. "What fleet!" re- 
torted the indignant pilot, " Our allied fleet, the 
fleet of Greece at the siege of Troy." The tra- 
veler tells us that he was electrified. The memo- 
ries of antiquity flashed with overwhelming glory 
upon his mind. He had forgotten that the poor 
pilot was of blood which was gentle and heroic 
when Britain was inhabited by cannibals ^ — which 
Tvas at the zenith of glory when history opens 
her earliest intelligible page. Who of us does 
not sympathize with the fine sensibility of that 
poor Greek? Who of us does not admire his 
claim of heirship, and love him for his fond pride 
over those waters and coasts gilded so long, long 
ago, with the precious memories of his fathers ? 

But what are the memories of a legendary 
fleet at Troy, in comparison with the historic 
glories of ou7' Mayflower riding at anchor on the 
wintry New England coast? What are the half- 
fabled characters of Agamemnon Ulysses and 
the rest, in the darkness of three thousand years 
ago, in comparison with the true and venerable 
name of ozfr just departed Washington? What 
are all the most glorious memories of a Pagan 



i 



19 

antiquity; what are all the struggles and mas- 
teries of brute, selfish force ; when compared 
with the struggles of Christian heroism ; when 
compared with the masteries of self-denying prin- 
ciple — the pure, incorruptible, moral founda- 
tions upon which, as the work of ou7' fathers, we 
stand to-day ? 

Pilgrim Fathers! how shall we measure 
your worth ? — how shall we estimate your right- 
ful honor ? You were moral giants in a hard 
and stormy age. You were incorruptible found- 
ers of institutions that brighten the history of 
man. I can fancy that the Genius of Liberty 
will sit evermore musing at the head of your 
graves. I can almost imagine that the final 
flames of doom, Avhen commissioned to consume 
a corrupt and incorrigible world, Avill pause a 
moment in reverence before your immortal dust. 
Fortunate land that holds in her bosom the relics 
of such men ! Fortunate nation that owns as 
citizens the sons in whose veins still flows this 
nobler than regal blood ! Read history through, 
till her whole story is done, and where will you 
find the like? Are we to l)c blamed for loving 
with the warmest, the wildest affection a home 
of such memories ? Are Ave to be blamed for a 



20 

jealous solicitude over every blot on her fair 
name, over every impediment to her growing 
greatness and splendor? 

We love our country, also, and ought to love 
her, for her genial and gentle institutions. For 
we have here no government vrhose strength and 
prosperity is one thing, and the comfort and 
prosperity of the people another. We have 
here no estate of noble beggars pensioned on the 
public purse. We have here no class who are 
born to live in idleness through all their genera- 
tions on the industry of others. With us, merit 
is nobility, and industry and skill are wealth. 
With us, none are born only for office and its 
emoluments, and none only for subjection and its 
burdens. This is the genius, at least, of our gov- 
ernment. And this, I think, throughout the sec- 
tion in which we live, is its practical working. 
If in another section of our land it is different ; 
if there is there a privileged aristocracy ; if there 
is there a birth to office and idleness, and a birth 
to disfranchisement and slavery ; then, though it 
be within our body politic, it is not of us. It is 
an element foreign to all our social foundations. 
It is a disorganizing, destructive element to such 
institutions as ours. It has dama":ed us much 



21 

already, it may yet damage us vastly more. 
And if it be true that it has made a kind of con- 
genital ulcer, too deep and organic to be cut out 
clean with safety to our national life, then, surely, 
we shall not hate it the less for that. But we 
cannot on this account love our precious country 
the less. Rather, like a dear friend in infirmity, 
we shall love her the more tenderly, for our pity 
over her loathesome blemish. We shall long 
and labor for the day when the wicked and 
dansferous thincr shall be sloughed off" into the 
waters of the southern gulf, to be seen by 
American eyes no more. 

There is another cord of endearment which 
binds us as Americans with a new attachment to 
this cherished land — it is the hope of far brighter 
and better things yet to be. ' When a child of 
uncommon promise is given to our arms, and 
daily unfolds into the dawn of qualities which 
foretell a rare career of honor and usefulness, we 
all know how it binds parental hearts every day 
closer and closer to that child. The bright con- 
summation which the heart craves, the suspense 
of expectation over the uncertain future, the 
manifest advance from interval to interval to- 
ward the idolized result — all serve to strenirthen 



22 

and intensify our affection. We begin to love 
already the fancied ideal of onr hope, and all 
the tenderness- of solicitude is engendered be- 
sides over the chances and perils through which 
the cherished object must pass to arrive at the 
posture where it should be. So we realize, or 
ought to realize, that that one thing which gives 
our country her chief pre-eminence among the 
nations, is still a principle on probation. Our 
institutions are still an experiment. They may 
succeed, and they may fail. The world has 
never yet seen that which can fairly be set up as 
a parallel. In the democracy of ancient Athens, 
in the so-called republic of Rome, in the short 
and sanguinary attempts of modern France, in 
the little confederation of Switzerland, — all that 
would be thought of in comparison with us, — 
there are differences so essential as quite to neu- 
tralize the force of any inferences from such com- 
parisons. The democracy of Athens was an un- 
restrained ocean of popular power, perpetually 
surging hither and thither under storms of pas- 
sion, or the breath of oratory. The famed free- 
dom of the Roman state was a narrow, selfish 
platform, built on the slavery of the Avorld. The 
republic of Prance was essentially a transient, 



23 

re-actioiiaiy impulse, and finally Diarried to a 
military despotism. The little confederation of 
the Swiss, so small and isolated, has not been 
subjected to all the strains which fall on the 
great active nations of the world. Of the 
three great examples, then, excepting the Swiss, 
the religion of the two first was a worn out 
Paganism ; of the third, bald infidelity. But 
of a great, free, Christian nation, founded on 
liberty, equality, law and the Bible, open to the 
whole brotherhood of mankind, and marching 
on a champion of human rights for all the world 
and for all the ages — of this we have no paral- 
lel on which either to predict success, or to pre- 
sage a failure. We have, however, undoubtedly, 
rational ground for the strongest hope. We 
have, undoubtedly, a broad foundation for the 
most inspiring anticipations of coming years. 
All we seem to need is to be allowed in safety 
to go on our way. All we need is a continued 
growth in greatness like the past, and a growth 
in virtue to equal it. True, it doth not yet ap- 
pear what we, as a nation, shall be, but it is sure 
that it may be such as the world has not yet 
dreamed of It may be such a home of liberty, 
such a scene of peaceful order and contented 



24 

industry, where the sword of authority never 
need be drawn from the scabbard, such a theatre 
of plenty and material prosperity and splendor, 
such a land of comfort and greatness, such a 
land of right and virtue and religion as would 
well answer to the figure of millennial glory and 
the reign of the Redeemer of men upon earth. 
We know it is possible, we hope it will be true. 
And no honest heart need be told how this fond 
hope enhances our attachment to this "promised 
land" of mankind. 

But now we must not forget that these insti- 
tutions which we love are the most delicate and 
precarious of all things beneath the sun. We 
delight in them, because they are the very trans- 
cript and expression of our desir.es and opinions. 
We glory in them, because they are founded on 
the will of the people. But all men know that 
there is not in the whole universe a more unsta- 
ble thing than the will of the populace. There 
is nothing in the whole universe more capable 
of sudden, unexpected and complete revulsions 
in its course than the breath of the multitude. 
To-day a measure, or a man may be riding on the 
topmost wave of popular favor, and be carried for- 
ward with swift and irresistible force. Tomor- 



25 

row this impulse may be in swift recoil and the 
object of yesterday's huzzahs, left stranded by 
the ebbing tide, may be the object of equally 
earnest hatred and curses. It were idle to deny, 
and it were foolish to blind our eyes to the fact, 
that there are not, and perhaps it were impos- 
sible in consistency with the genius of our insti- 
tions to construct, any safe and insuperable bar- 
riers which should prevent such a rush of popu- 
lar sentiment to one extreme, or the other, as may 
plunge us almost in a day into remediless national 
perdition. This catastrophe, which history has 
already written out of others, is plainly possible, 
too, of ourselves. However unwelcome and start- 
ling such a thought may be, there is certainly 
no wisdom in deceiving ourselves on a point of 
sucli moment, or in refusing to look squarely 
into the face of facts which we cannot alter. 

When we consider, then, how slight and fragile 
is the machinery of our gentle government, by 
the very necessity of its nature ; when we reflect 
how different are its pliant and elastic founda- 
tions from the invincible, unyielding, iron foun- 
dations on which, nevertheless, the great mon- 
archies have often been shaken almost to a fall, 
and without which no government has yet proved 

4 



I 



26 

itself able to outride the storms of ages ; when we 
think of the wild .aspiration for ofiice and power 
which seems to grow with the growth of the na- 
tion ; when we think of the general supremacy 
of self-seeking, and the easy and tempting oppor- 
tunities for' gathering spoils at the expense of 
truth and justice and the interests of the state ; 
when we see the rapid and extreme changes in 
the rotation of elections ; when w^e remember the 
obscurity and the repulsive features of many 
needful measures which are in reality too com- 
plicated in their bearings and too profound ever 
to be sufficiently understood by a majority of 
voters, to be intelligently and wisely judged of; 
when we remember how strong is the desire of 
popularity in elective officers of state ; when we 
observe how little respect and fear of authority 
has come to dwell in the minds of the people, 
taught to regard themselves as the ever supreme 
fountain of authority ; when we see liberty seem- 
ing to be training up a spirit of lawlessness; 
when we see the mad impatience for desired re- 
sults, the conflicting interests of individuals and 
of localities ; when we look into the halls of legis- 
lation, and compute how few of those senators 
and representatives constantly vote by their 



( 



27 

judgment and conscience for the best public 
good, and how often and how many vote by a 
calculation merely upon the highest bribe and 
for the greatest individual profit ; and when we 
remember at this very hour our present upheaved 
and crumblino^ condition, the rao-e of the liurri 
cane which as yet shows no symptom of abate- 
ment, if it be not every hour blowing with 
greater and greater fury ; — who, but an idiot, 
or a traitor, can rest unconcerned for the sensi- 
tive and frail machinery of our beloved institu- 
tions? Who can fail to see that there is no 
powei', but tliat which rolls the orbs in heaven, 
which can ensure tlie steadiness and security of 
so many and so mighty loosely chained forces ? 
Who can fail to see that ours is no government, 
and that this is no hour in her history under 
which a good citizen may sleep away his years 
in indolence and security ? Who can fail to see 
that every iota of intelligence, of influence, of 
conscientious integrity which is possessed by any 
citizen is demanded of him by the call of patriot- 
ism to be consecrated to the salvation and per- 
petuity of this precious, republic, this supreme 
hope for the liberty and happiness of mankind? 
I think I can point out in a few closing words 



28 

three, or four transcendent duties which every 
citizen owes to this land, and which every hon- 
est and intelhgent lover of his country will re- 
joice steadily to pay with a view to her momen- 
tary welfare. For none of us, I hope, expect to 
be preserved and sustained by miraculous inter- 
positions of Heaven. At the final destruction of 
Jerusalem, by Titus and his Roman army, the in- 
fatuated people believed to the last hour that 
God would yet interpose and by some unex- 
pected aid deliver their heaven-beloved nation 
from utter overthrow. But they were miserably 
mistaken ; and hundreds of thousands who might 
have escaped hugged their empty delusion, till 
they perished by the sword, or the flames. Some- 
thing like this has happened to others, before their 
day and since. Every nation, I believe, since 
the world began, has regarded itself as in some 
way of more consequence in the eye of Provi- 
dence, than any other. But of this we ma}' be 
sure, whatever the Hand of God in the matter, 
we shall be shockingly disap^Dointed, if we trust 
our perpetuity and welfare as a nation to any- 
thing which fails to make the people, and each 
of them, the saviours and protectors of them- 
selves. 



29 

Every citizen's first great duty of patriotism, 
then, is never to despair of his country's safety 
and welflire. Despair is not the temper of a pa- 
triot, nor is it any means of his country's good. 
Whatever be the straits and the dano-er, no e'ood 
citizen will for a moment believe that his coun- 
try is going down in disgrace and ruin. Every 
citizen must uphold her not only by an uncon- 
querable arm, but by unconquerable hopes. 
There is a force in this whole-hearted confidence 
which cannot be over-estimated We talk of the 
moral support of foreigners, of the countenance 
and moral aid of other nations ; but all that the 
whole outside world can do in this way is not 
once to be compared with the stability and in- 
vincible strength which comes, and can come, 
only from the unwavering confidence of a fond, 
reliant community at home. In fact, the opinion 
of the foreigner is of little practical value in an}- 
way, except as it is wont to operate on this con- 
fidence of our own citizens here. But it is pre- 
eminently in the hearts and the hopes of the 
people that the strength of our government lies. 
While this fountain of life is sound and healthy 
and buoyant, her vigor will be like that of Samp- 
son in the glory of his unshorn locks. The com- 



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mon shackles and impediments upon national 
development she will burst through and brush 
away like withs of tow, because the secret of 
her great strength is untouched, and she cannot 
be bound by human hand. But once let the 
undaunted affection, the confident hope of her 
citizens be undermined; let the morbid spirit 
of despair creep over the body politic, like the 
chill of some noisome ague ; lo, almost in an 
hour, the strength of a giant will have faded 
into helpless weakness. The secret of power 
has been reached. Sampson shorn is led away 
to shame and slavery. It is a prime duty, then, 
of every favored subject of our beloved popular 
government, to guard and foster this undying 
confidence in his own breast, and to guard and 
foster it in the bosom of every fellow-citizen. 
Words^ of despondency must not be allowed to 
fly about from lip to lip on their errand of mis- 
chief Words of o'ood cheer must dwell on our 
tongues, thoughts of hope and confidence must 
brighten our faces, and deeds of courage and 
real self-denial must make our Uves noble and 
heroic, or we are unfit for our place and our 
day. 

The next precept proposes to restrain a great 



31 

vice of our times, and especially a peculiar vice 
of our American temper and habits. It is a 
grand old precept of the Bible, and was origi- 
nally uttered for the spiritual guidance of the 
faithful Christian, but it is equally appropriate 
and vastly needed to control the visible, present 
life of every citizen. It is God's conservatism. 
It is to let the great stable virtue ^"liave lier i^er- 
fect luorkj'' And that work will not be indo- 
lence, nor indifference, nor neglect. It will not 
shut out attention and interest and anxiety, but 
it will include forbearance and caution and some- 
times a wise endurance. It will not be blind nor 
insensible, it will see and feel, but it will bear 
and wait. I shall not dispute the national idea, 
if it be such, that fifteen minutes is time enough 
for an American to consume on his dinner, or fif- 
teen seconds time enough for him to deliberate 
and decide upon the most gigantic bargain in 
commerce. But American citizens must learn 
that their quarter of a minute, or quarter of an 
hour is not the precise amount of time which 
God may choose to take in working out, even 
through them, the great moral and civil amelior- 
ations of man. American citizens must learn 
that even their own idolized and wonderful na- 



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tion is not to run the race of national greatness 
so swift and so sure as completely to outstrip 
every assault of human errors and human guilt 
and completely to escape every shock of disaster 
and loss. They must learn that swiftness alone 
is not enough for anything, but the meteor which 
goes out in darkness at the very moment it has 
attained the zenith. They must learn to wait 
without discontent, to labor steadily without 
impatience, while the slow results of patriotic 
efforts gradually shape themselves aright and 
consolidate and mature. They must learn to 
work with unfailing patience for years and gen- 
erations upon this difficult and stupendous fab- 
ric which we hope is now rearing to go down, 
an honor to our posterity and a blessing to man- 
kind, and whose brightness, we hope, will, not be 
dimmed, till its glories are lost in the splendors of 
the millennial day. This will be a prodigious, 
amazing achievement ; and like every other great 
human enterprise, must advance with varied and 
very uncertain progress. Mistakes, follies and 
treacheries areto be expected. Hitches will occur 
in all hunuin machinery. The heart of the patriot 
will often be stung almost beyond endurance. 
Yet, in the grand comparison, these drawbacks 



33 

are but a little thing in so great a march of light, 
civilization and liberty onward. They must be 
endured, and may be comfortably endured, if we 
will see in them the finger of Providence, as well 
as the footprints of human imperfection which 
must be expected to attend even on the march 
of human amelioration and real advancement. — 
As to the yet unsolved and terrible question of 
slavery, the sorest push, no doubt, on the pa- 
tience of many a noble heart. It is clearly pos- 
sible that the wheels of the Divine chariot are 
retarded in mercy. The tender and devoted 
Redeemer, when summoned once to the sick-bed 
of a friend, lingered four days in slow prepara- 
tions for the journey, and when at last told of 
his death, said He was glad He had not come 
sooner, because now God would be glorified in 
a more stupendous miracle. And if it be God's 
will that an additional year, or two, or more, of 
peril and suffering shall work out for us a more 
complete and glorious deliverance, what sincere 
patriot cannot afford to be patient? Tf God 
choose to allow the serpent of rebellion to live, 
despite all our efforts, till it has eaten up the ser- 
pent of slavery for us, and then dying clears our 
land of both serpents at once, what good man 



34 

will not feel paid for the time of waiting? Some 
of us, all of us, may be too mucli in a hurry. 
"He that believeth," says the Bible, "will not 
make haste." 

One great duty more. It is the genius of re- 
publics to affect simplicity. It is one of the 
many charms of our American institutions that 
public power here can safely lay aside the im- 
posing paraphernalia of monarchies. Any of- 
ficer among us can securely and efficiently exe- 
cute his trust in the ordinary garb of a citizen. 
Almost while I speak, the Supreme Judiciary of 
the United States has yielded to the simplicity 
of republican ideas and cast away the last impos- 
ing trapping of old traditionary stateliness. That 
venerable judicial vesture, that long black robe 
and snowy bands, that awful rag of old despotic 
power has been put off, to be put on in America 
no more. Scarce a trace, in civil life, of these 
relics of the dark and barbarous ages any longer 
exists among us. It is grand to think that the 
American people can recognize and obey the 
reality of power without its coarse, barbaric ap- 
pendages. That a great people should firmly 
and thoroughly govern themselves is the loftiest 
political thought that ever entered the mind of 



35 

man. It is an idea which the " statesmen of the 
old world, for the most part, have no faith in 
whatever, and which they laugh at, as like a chil- 
dren's school without a master. And, undoubt- 
edly, its success demands a simplicity of heart as 
well as of manners, and a universal loyalty of 
deportment which no people as yet has conclu- 
sively proved itself equal to. The grand neces- 
sity and the grand diflftculty is to secure for the 
pure abstraction of authority and justice the love 
and the respect of the great heart of the commu- 
nity. When a fellow-citizen, at the call of the 
sacred ballot, takes up the reins of government 
in any department, then must his countrymen 
look at him, not as an equal to criticize, censure 
and condemn at will, but as a necessary incarna- 
tion of sacred law and inviolable command. 
Personal qualities, individual likes and dislikes, 
when once the choice is over, must all be lost 
sip^ht of, in reco2:nizino^ the called ofiicer of the 
common weal. Whatever may be the imperfec- 
tions of the man, the authority which he bears is 
pure and perfect, and sacred. The poor form of 
clay, each witli his own peculiarities and infirmi- 
ties, soon gives place to a different yet differently 
imperfect successor, but the sacred authority 



36 

changes not and dies not. This remains ever- 
more the same, like God above. This hallowed, 
benign, omnipotent idea must never be trifled 
with. This invisible angel of authority cannot 
with impunity be slighted. This we must every 
moment obey, defend and uphold with all our 
might. This faithfully obeyed, defended and 
upheld will stand by us, as the guardian angel 
of our liberties and prosperity, till time shall end. 
It needs no robes, or imposing state. The great- 
est simplicity is doubtless the best taste for 
American citizens, in both public and private life. 
It is, certainly, the most in unison with the genius 
of our simple institutions. But if public sim- 
plicity is degraded into emptiness and brutality ; 
if the dignity of oflQce is lost sight of, in the com- 
monness of the man ; if the immediate account- 
ability of elective officers cripple, or debase the 
supremacy of government itself ; if neglect of the 
material trappings of authority means failure of 
respect and fidelity to the authorized power ; if 
absence of cringing servility means lack of love 
and loyalty to the actual ruling ai"m ; — then woe 
worth the day to my country ; — then give me 
such security as despotism can offer, rather than 
a grinding to powder under the endless roll of 



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37 

radical revolutions. Which may God forbid, and 
the faithful, wise, self-sacrificing support of my 
countrymen given cheerfully and always to those 
fellow-citizens who hold for the time the high 
offices of authority and trust in the .land happily 
and forever avert ! 

Custom requires of me one word more. At 
the close of these annual services, we make an 
annual offering to these orphan children. They 
lean on our charities for childhood's bread and 
their first start in life. Many times, it may be, 
during the year, some of us have responded to 
this sweet call. If so it has done us good ; and 
we have by this route sent so much forward to 
Heaven which will be paid to us again in solid, 
incorruptible treasure on our arrival there. But 
whether it be so, or whether we have lacked 
opportunity before, what so fit climax to this 
hour, when we sit down to remember how much 
we have received and how able we are and how 
bound we are to lend back to the Lord ! And 
what act so fitting for the wise citizen and pa- 
triot, as thus to lend a helping hand to forestall 
the dens of infamy, rob the almshouse and beg- 
gar the penitentiary ? For the soiled and ragged 
little things upon our streets to-day will shape 



38 

the destiny of our country and our children 
tomorrow. 



HYMN. 

BY MRS. H E M A N S . 
[Sung in conclusion.] 

The breaking waves daslied high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast, 

And the woods against a stormy sky 
Their giant branches tossed; 

And the heavy night hung dark 

The hills and waters o'er, 
When a Ijand of exiles moored their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 

Not as the conqueror comes 

They, the true hearted, came; 
Not with roll of the stirring drums. 

And the trumpet that sings of fame ; 

Not as the flying come, 

In silence and in fear; — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 

With their hymns of lofty cheer. 



39 

Amidst the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard, and the sea! 

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
To the anthem of tlie free. 

The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white wave's foam, 
And the rocking pines of the forest roared — 

This was their welcome home. 

What sought they thus afar? 

Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? — 

They sought a faith's pure shrine! 

Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod! 
They have left unstained what there they found — 

Freedom to worship God. 



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